An: Hey, to everyone who's been waiting, thank you! This is the sort of sequel to Soft Shadows, but really you don't have to read any of it to make it make sense if you're patient, but I do suggest reading the first chapter for the full effect. Please review!
We're fighting.
I'm not even home yet, and I already know it. I can practically smell it. How long have I been living with her now? Four years? Five? It would be pathetic to say that I ran for the door, so I'll say that I wore off a centimeter of rubber from the heel of my shoe in the last thirty seconds before I collapsed on the couch.
Yeah, that sounds much cooler, Soul.
Tsubaki's voice rings in my head as I hide, flipping through the stations like a coward. 'You're a good friend.' Her leg was torn apart. I should have stayed, but how do you tell that to a door?
And Blackstar. I want to break something just thinking about that bastard. I'd put up with him calling himself 'god', with him driving every sane girl away from us at any club we went to, but I wouldn't put up with him making out with my meister, my freaking room mate, and then making me feel like shit because I was holding his partner's hand in a completely innocent way. For the seven minutes it took to get to their apartment I didn't want to die in a corner because Maka was lying to me, had been lying to me.
I heard the noise of the fridge door opening and remembered it was my night to cook. Crap. At least it wasn't Blaire's. Aside from the fact that I hated fish, they were always burned to a crisp. She somehow managed to eat all thirty of them, though, and was passed out happily clutching her gluttonous little stomach when me and Maka ordered out half an hour later.
Maka. I was angry at her too. I stared so hard at the truckers on TV shouting into the camera about their expensive engines that I thought my eyes were going to explode. Maybe that was why I felt like we were fighting.
It's all in your head. I reassured myself, touching the scar across my chest absentmindedly. After the intensity of Maka's reaction to it, I had been sure… but no. She was Blackstar's. It's just like those dreams, with the demon. You're making it up.
Once upon a freaking really nice time ago, Blackstar's still beating heart would have been nailed to my bedroom wall right now while I pulled out his intestines with an acid coated fire poker.
The fridge door slams shut, a not so subtle hint that I was a loser. I haul myself off the couch, bones creaking like the old man I resemble. Yup, and then I fell in love with Maka, started doing whatever she demanded, and also started insulting her so that I wouldn't look like a complete and total jackass when she turned me down and, as a result, I murdered every male on the planet.
Oh, wait. Except for Blackstar. Because I never thought she would have gotten that desperate. As I pull out the ingredients for Philly cheese steaks, I notice that she's just sitting on the kitchen counter, staring at me as she swings her legs back and forth. Long, those incredibly long legs that make my head spin.
I shake my head before I'm completely hypnotized, and slam the raw steak on the counter. Her olive green eyes glare at me, and I cut myself off, sliding the knife through the plastic wrapping covering the steak.
"Aren't you even going to wash your hands?" She says, voice indignant.
God. Help. Me.
I stomp over to the sink because she's right. We were training in the park, and we'll probably all have worms by the end of the week if I don't wash my hands before I cook. An hour and a half of intense training after an already incredibly long and draining day. Sometimes I think Maka doesn't even realize we're seniors. "How late is Blaire working tonight?" I ask, just because I can't take the silence anymore, and Blaire is the only mundane thing I can think of.
The sound of her feet kicking back and forth on the cupboard stops as she leans over to check the calendar by the fridge. "Uhhh…."
I feel only slightly guilty for checking her out as she does this. I also note that, no, I can not keep calling her flat chested in any way, shape or form. Damn. This is going to be a long week. No wonder I always skipped Mondays in grade school.
"Until closing." She finishes, just barely managing to catch her balance as she leans back into her original place on the counter. My eyes are safely back on the steak because I'm not that stupid. Getting Maka chopped straight into both raw steak and a steak knife was not high on my objectives list tonight.
"It's a Monday, so that's, what? One thirty?" I put the steak in the pan, and before I can start looking for a spatula, Maka's putting one in my hand. Oh, geez. When'd she get so close?
Well, I think sarcastically, probably around the same time your brain short circuited.
"Yeah, I think so." I hear the scrape of wood on tile, and I want to rip my hair out, even though I'm pretty sure it's a fire hazard for her to be sitting on the counter in a miniskirt while I'm trying to cook. I hear her sit down on the chair, and the dragging of cloth on wood. "Aren't you going to flip those?"
Oh. Yeah. I'm cooking. I flip the steak, watching it sizzle. I have an entire minute before I can take them out and start with the onions and peppers. If I was a sane person – no scratch that. If Maka hadn't been sitting on the counter, I would have started with the vegetables.
Maka thinks I'm lazy. I just can't get anything done around her.
There's the familiar thudding of books on the kitchen table as I cook and I can relax into it now, knowing that there is no way that even the smallest part of her attention is on me. She's all into… 'homework'. It makes me grin as I slice the sub rolls, and as I lean to put them back I try to just dissolve into the peace of the moment. Maka's breathing at the table, the sound of a page turning, the clank of the fork as I put it down –
And she's not reading a textbook. My jaw tightens. She's looking at a photo album. The pain is so intense that for a second I wonder if I'm having a heart attack.
But that's not it. The air tenses, and I realize that we were fighting all along and we were just too stupid to notice it.
Because sticking out of Maka's jacket pocket is a ticket stub. And I didn't need it, the proof. So I wonder why it makes it that much worse. That much worse than hearing Blaire that morning.
She stared blankly at the blankets in my hand. "What do you mean, Soul-kun? Those aren't mine. Ask Maka. She's out with Blackstar. She wouldn't even let me help pick out her clothes!"
Grab your keys. Tear through the streets. Yeah, you better honk, you bastard. What the hell do you mean, you're a cop? Whatever. I don't have time for this. Yeah, yeah. Pound the piece of junk if you want to, you useless excuse for law enforcement. Why is Kid calling me? Tsubaki is missing. Crap.
Walk. Walk faster. When did I start running? Crying? Tsubaki? God, her leg. It's torn apart. Who did this to her? Her brother. She did it to herself. Of course, I'm an idiot and she's not the only one with brothers. Breathe, forget that you hate Blackstar. Give her your jacket. Hold her hand. Walk her home. Make her smile.
That feels… much better.
Blackstar's hurt. No. NO. You can't hurt. I'm sorry. It doesn't work that way. I'm just making her feel better, just holding her hand. You can't hurt for that.
"Soul?" Tsubaki. Earnest. Blue eyes wide.
"Yeah?"
"You're a good friend."
I put the plate down so hard that little piece of onion flies up onto our clothes.
"Soul, what the-" Maka yells, picking a piece out of her hair with disdain.
I pull the stub out of her pocket and stare at it, disbelievingly. The Backup Plan. Matinee. Cheapskates, both of them. The world turns from white paper to red so slowly that I can barely feel the blood lust building, the black hate filling me.
The stub was from a little over two weeks ago. When Maka was 'spending the day with her dad'. According to her, they spent the entire day camped out at the mall. What was the next time? Liz and Patty in an impromptu girls' day out? And after that? Dinner with Tsubaki, study group at the library, some old friends from middle school.
It's getting harder to think, to breathe, the emotions I've suppressed all day working to fight their way to the front. One tally mark after another, sign after sign I didn't want to see.
I put the stub down, and my vision clears. Except when Maka is there, she isn't Maka anymore. She's someone else. Someone who's lied to me. Who'd seen my soul. Who could destroy me, more completely, more totally than anyone had before.
When my vision cleared, Maka was a threat.